Asphalt is a cementing material of asphalt concrete, and the use of petroleum asphalt with stable qualities and excellent performances is the key measure to ensure the service performance and service life of asphalt pavement. More than 55% of China's pavement petroleum asphalt is produced by three companies which are Sinopec Group, China National Petroleum Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation. The oil sources of the asphalt produced by the above companies are stable, but different refineries use different oil sources. For example, the refinery of PetroChina Karamay Petrochemical Company uses Xinjiang heavy oil to produce asphalt, and the refinery of PetroChina Liaohe Petrochemical Company uses Huanxiling heavy oil to produce asphalt. Although the two kinds of asphalt are collectively named asphalt of “Kunlun brand”, the difference between qualities of the two kinds of asphalt is large. Karamay asphalt is pavement petroleum asphalt of high quality, but it is difficult to process it and produce modified asphalt due to its composition, while Liaohe asphalt is a good choice for processing into modified asphalt. Meanwhile, the asphalt production of local refineries has been continuously increased in recent years, accounting for about 30% of the asphalt consumption. local refineries use a large number of oil sources, such that the quality of asphalt is very unstable. It is commonplace to sell fakes under the labels of imported asphalt or domestic high-quality asphalt such as asphalt of “Kunlun brand”. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to identify the oil sources of asphalt and correspond the same to asphalt refineries, so as to ensure the quality stability of asphalt.
Currently, China uses an asphalt penetration evaluation system to evaluate asphalt through indicators such as penetration, softening points, and ductility before and after asphalt aging. The whole set of indicators takes about 6-8 hours, and is not suitable for the requirement of quickly determining the asphalt quality at a construction site. Meanwhile, the physical index test of asphalt under merely specific conditions and specific loading conditions cannot comprehensively and objectively evaluate the quality of asphalt, resulting in a large difference in pavement performances of asphalt satisfying the same indicators. Moreover, the phenomenon in which other blended and mixed asphalt is used to pretend to be branded asphalt, and troubles such as revelling and pit slots of asphalt pavement caused by asphalt quality problems happens all the time. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to develop a method that can be applied to quickly identify the oil source and refinery of asphalt at the construction site, so as to solve brand faking, blending and mixing problems of asphalt.